Stage Directions
by Thistlefang
Summary: 'Just who's bloody Idea had this been? Ludwig's, of course. Only he could have organized something so totally and utterly idiotic.' - Rated T for England's swearing and France being himself. Human!AU - mildly Gakuen Hetalia.
1. Chapter 1

Arthur Kirkland was not particularly happy. He hadn't been for the past few days – or ever, as his colleges would most likely add. Just who's bloody Idea had this been? Ludwig's, of course. Only he could have organized something so totally and utterly idiotic.

"Mr. Kirkland?" The voice of one of the students (or 'actors' as that dreadful drama teacher had taken to calling them) broke the English professor from his thoughts.

"Yes, Alfred? What do you need?"

"Mr. Bonnefoy said he needed you for something," the boy grinned back.

It was common knowledge that the two hated each other, even among the pupils. The Brit was convinced that half of those who had turned up to be in the play had only done so to watch the massive arguments that would more than likely ensue between Francis and himself. So far there hadn't been any major fistfights or shouting matches, but it was only a matter of time. Arthur grumbled something to himself before stomping over to where he knew the Frenchman would be.

Just as he'd predicted the frog was fussing around the two poor teenagers (the leading couple of Romeo and Juliet, if he remembered correctly) at the centre of the stage.

"_Non_, _non_, _non_! Zat was terrible! Don't just pretend – act! Put a little passion into it!" His rant trailed away as he spotted the scraggly-haired Englishman approaching. "Ah, Arthur, _mon petit_! Come 'ere, I need your 'elp with showing these children 'ow to act."

The English teacher only just managed to stop himself correcting the 'Arthur' to 'Mr. Kirkland', instead going over to where his flamboyant co-worker was motioning for him to stand. Francis pointed to a part of the script where he should start.

Oh god.

It just _had_ to be that one, didn't it?

And why did _he_ have to be the girl?

Rolling his eyes, he listened as 'Romeo' started talking.

"O, zen, dear saint, let lips do what 'ands do; 'Zey pray. Grant thou, lest faith turn into despair."

With a tired sigh, thick eyebrows knotted into a deep frown, ignoring the snickers of the gathering mass of teens around the stage, he read out his own piece of dialogue. "Saints do not move, though grant for prayer's sake."

"Zen move not, while my prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips , by yours, my sin is purged." Each over-dramatic movement had been inching the Parisian closer to the Londoner, much to the latter's horror.

Through gritted teeth, in the most monochrome voice he could muster and glowering darkly at the man in front of him, Arthur reluctantly spoke his next line. "Then have my lips the in they have took."

This was met by a mixture of muffled laughter and giggles from their little 'audience', to which the drama teacher tutted.

"Zat is not very polite, children. Besides, 'e is showing more emotion zan you, Elizabetta." Turning towards 'Juliet' he frowned, then pointed towards 'Romeo' and motioned him to stand closer to her.

"Gilbert, do not stand so far away from 'er. You will need to be closer to 'er at some point. Now, pay attention to zis next part, both of you. Just after Romeo says 'is next line: 'Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!' - you turn to your Juliet..." He turned to the now-quite-worried English professor, moving closer to him, "And zen you dip her down, like so."

A muffled scream of 'unhand me, frog!' left the Brit as he suddenly found himself being loomed over by the Frenchman, his arms flailing around, bringing them both crashing to the stage floor.

The stifled laughter from earlier turned into an outright guffaw of children giggling and pointing to the two teachers now lying in an awkward heap, one above the other.

Trying to regain what little dignity he could muster, Arthur glared up at the thinly-bearded blond before shoving him off and getting to his feet. He dusted himself down, turning to the two leads of the play as though nothing had happened.

"At which point you, Romeo, will kiss Juliet." He pointed to the white-haired teen who was almost rolling on the floor with laughter, clicking his fingers in front of the younger's face to grab his attention and then turned to the long-haired girl standing to the side snickering to herself. "Juliet, you will then deliver your lines without any foolish giggling or looks of childish disgust, while Romeo will refrain from looking smug and calling himself 'awesome' as he has done for the previous four rehearsals."

Sliding up behind his ranting and clearly quite embarrassed colleague, Francis nodded and deliberately leaned an arm on the younger's shoulder, smirking as he was shoved away. "_Oui_, zis play will only be a success if you make it one," he turned to the other students with a grin before subtly jabbing the thickly-browed English teacher he was standing next to, "and zat goes for _all_ of you, _mes amis_."

* * *

The main hall of Hetalia High was dark at five am, various props and set-pieces scattered around, ready to be put in place for the night's performance. Stepping through the door, Francis flicked on the light switch, watching as one by one they slowly buzzed to life. He was here a great deal earlier than he would usually show up. Everything had to be perfect and it was his job to make sure that it would be. There was hardly much of a chance that that lazy English bas-

Oh.

He hadn't noticed that.

There he was, slumped over a makeshift desk at the edge of the stage, papers scattered all around him, sleeping. How long had he been there? All night, most likely. The long-haired blond waltzed over to him, looking at the unusually peaceful looking man. It was a shame he wasn't always this quiet, the Frenchman mused, but then it wouldn't be so fun to tease him. He had a certain _je ne sais quio_ when he was angry. Were it anyone else he were describing he would have used the term 'cute'.

In any case, he couldn't stay sleeping like that for the whole morning. Shaking the Brit's shoulders he spoke merrily. "_Bonjour, amour!_ It's time to wake up. We 'ave a big night ahead of us."

"Go to hell, frog..." the other mumbled groggily, before sitting bolt upright. "Wait what the hell are you doing in... my... house." He trailed off as he realized just where he was, before resting his forehead back against the 'desk' he had made from an old crate. "Not again..."

"You 'ave fallen asleep like zis before?"

"Only once, last week. Anyway, why would it matter to you, wanker?"

Francis shrugged, heading behind the curtain to hang up his coat and put down his bag. "What were you doing 'ere so late, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I was estimating the money we'll make; the number of tickets we've sold; the number we'll sell at the door; the cost of running the show; the number of seats we'll need... All I'll say is that there's a reason I never became a maths teacher." He turned to the Parisian, "What about you? I've never seen you show up this early before."

"I want to make sure zat everything is set up properly for tonight. We 'ave all worked so 'ard, after all. Zen again, maybe I just wanted to see you, _non_?" He shot the Englishman seductive, borderline smarmy grin.

Arthur scowled. He always had to ruin anything that resembled a remotely normal conversation, didn't he? With a tired sigh he mumbled the words 'Shut up, git' and got to his feet. He ran a hand through his messy hair, yawning.

"I might as well give you a hand then."

The two worked in relative silence, moving equipment and scenery, adjusting props, labelling costumes and testing the lighting and sound worked properly. After around three hours everything was ready and in place. Once again the Londoner yawned wearily.

"The kids will be coming in soon for rehearsals," he sighed.

"_Oui_, but you won't be 'ere," before he could be interrupted by protests the elder of the two ushered his co-worker towards the door. "You'll be of no use to anyone, 'alf dead like zis, Arthur. I'll take care of ze rehearsals. You go 'ome, get some sleep and come back tonight."

Seeing there was no room for argument and realizing, much to his own dismay, that the frog was right for once he reluctantly nodded.

"Fine, frog. But if I hear you've done anything to those kids while I wasn't here I'll-" Before he could finish he was shoved out of the door. He resisted chuckling. Well that was different. Their bickering had almost seemed friendly... No. He was just tired, that was all.

* * *

**A/N:** _Part 2 coming tomorrow!__ Title suggestions welcome & as always thank you to everyone who_ follows, favorites_ & _reviews_, as well as thanks to all of you silent readers__**. **__Feel free to tell me if you liked or hated it - it's the only way I'll ever get any better at writing. Much love ~Thistlefang_


	2. Chapter 2

Thankfully, the children were all intact when he returned, a buzz of excitement making its way through the entire cast and crew of the school's little production. A few of the teachers had even shown up to wish them all well.

The school's teacher, Mr. Carriedo was currently chatting with Francis, alongside someone else... Mr. Williams, perhaps? Arthur wasn't sure of what subject he taught, physics maybe? Mr Braginski, a history teacher, was looming in one corner, watching events unfold with that unsettling little smile of his, meanwhile Mr. Beilschmidt, the principle, was slowly but surely making his way over to the Englishman. The latter frowned. He wasn't a fan of the German.

"Arthur, I just vanted to congratulate you. I'm looking forward to vatching ze final product." His stern face contradicted his words completely, small frown making the shorter of the true feel as though he should be guilty for doing something wrong.

Smoothing down his slicked-back blond hair the larger man turned on his heel and walked away, not giving the other time to reply.

"Git," He murmured under his breath. It was more likely that he had enjoyed watching the two members of staff at each other's throats. Then again, that hadn't gone exactly to plan. There had barely been any fighting at all (at least when the children were around to hear), minus one or two fairly minor arguments a day - and there had only been three or four actual fistfights since the beginning of the project a month ago...

But back on track, Arthur made his way to the doors of the hall, yelling for everyone to get into there places either backstage or to the sides of the room. Within minutes everyone was ready, Francis giving the signal to begin, and the doors were opened.

What was at first a steady stream of people pouring in soon turned into a flow, which then became a torrent. It was busier than anyone had thought it would be on the first night, chairs being gathered from classrooms and stuffed into what little room remained in the large hall. By the time the play was about to begin there were people dotted around the room standing up, sitting down and even crouching at the front.

The English teacher sighed in relief as he finally made it behind the curtain, away from the bustling crowd to the almost-quiet lull of the students acting as cast and crew. He was just about to find himself a quiet spot where he could watch the play, direct the actors without being seen should he be needed, when he spotted the frog going over a last minute mini-rehearsal of the scene the two leads had found most difficult.

"_Non_! For ze last time, you cannot treat 'er like a sack of potatoes! And zat kiss, it's awful! You can do better zan zis! We ;ave gone over it 'ow many times now? _C'est des conneries_!"

The boy playing Romeo – Gilbert, if he remembered correctly – huffed moodily. "Well it's not like you can do any better. You and that old windbag English teacher fell on your asses."

Suddenly, his expression changed. The teen had a small, devious smirk on his face. It was a smirk that put Arthur instantly on edge.

"If you think you can do better than the awesome me, then why don't you show us while we're doing the scene. Lead us from the sidelines."

The drama teacher sighed, looking over his shoulder to where his horror-stricken college had somehow managed to turn pure white and bright red at the same time.

"_Oui_, fine zen. Arthur, It seems zat we will be instructing zem."

For once in his life the Englishman couldn't find anything to say. In the end he settled for "bloody hell..."

* * *

It was going surprisingly well, so far. There hadn't been any major mishaps, a boy named Feliciano had slipped over his lines at one point and had been laughed at _very_ loudly by his twin brother Lovino but that was ignored by everyone, cast and audience alike.

The two teachers watched from the sidelines, giving encouragement to the 'actors' and providing subtle hints on what to say on one occasion when someone began to tumble over their lines. Arthur tried to push any and all thoughts of _that _scene to the back of his mind. Why was he so worried anyway? It was just an act, showing the kids how to perform properly. Why was he so nervous? Why did it even matter?

"O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair."

As the boy on-stage spoke the Brit felt a hand tap his shoulder.

"Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake."

They moved to stand in front of one another, the Frenchman winking and delivering a small, infuriating grin.

"Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged."

Making eye-contact for a moment with the couple on stage to make sure they were paying attention Francis smirked, wrapping one arm around his slightly younger co-worker's waist and lowering him . Once again the English teacher couldn't help but wonder why he was the girl. The frog was much more feminine than he was.

The two on stage copied the action almost exactly, Juliet delivering her next line:

"Then have my lips the sin that they have took. "

The Parisian moved closer, face hovering only a short distance away from the Englishman's. To say it was uncomfortable (for one of them, at least) would have been an understatement.

Only just holding back snickers, Gilbert and Elizabetta mimicked the elder two, the former somehow managing to sound serious as he spoke.

"Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!"

At that moment, as both couples stooped to kiss, their was a loud creak. Two pairs of eyes - one sapphire, one emerald - snapped up, just in time to see the piece of set hiding them from the view of the crowd come crashing down.

There was a long, somewhat deathly silence as the crowd (around a third of which were pupils and teachers) stared at the two. Mouths agape in horror, the two men stared back.

Suddenly a loud shout came from the back of the hall, most definitely from one of the pupils (Alfred Jones, if either of them were to guess from the somewhat obnoxious tone of voice).

"YOU TWO SHOULD KISS!" ((*cough-totally-not-an-asdf-movie-reference-cough *))

A thud echoed around the room as Francis dropped Arthur, the latter of which toppled backwards off of the stage, directly into the school band beneath while letting out a chain of extremely British swears.

_'Merde. We are definitely not getting out of this with our jobs intact...' _Those were the only thoughts that drifted into the Frenchman's head at that point in time. Nothing else seemed to sum up the current turn of events.

* * *

**A/N**:_ Last part will be up , Thanks to everyone who followed, faved and reviewed so far, and to all the silent readers - you guys are awesome _~ Thistle ~


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